Keep America Growing

Episode 29: Policy, Pressure, and the Path Forward: A Conversation with Bart Fischer

How is farm policy keeping up with rising pressure in agriculture? Texas A&M’s Bart Fischer joins Keep America Growing to explain what’s working, what’s not, and why crop insurance still leads the way.

Episode 28: Margins, Risk, and Reality: A Conversation with Dr. Gary Schnitkey

Tight margins. Rising costs. More risk. In this episode, Dr. Gary Schnitkey from the University of Illinois breaks down what’s happening in the farm economy and why crop insurance matters more than ever.

Episode 27: With Sales Closing on the Horizon, a Conversation with a Crop Insurance Agent

The March 16 sales closing deadline is approaching, and crop insurance agent Luke Sandrock discusses what farmers are facing as they finalize their 2026 coverage.

Episode 26: Reading the Midterms: A Conversation with David Wasserman

The senior editor and elections analyst at The Cook Political Report sits down for a wide-ranging discussion on what history tells us about midterms and which races could have an outsized impact on agriculture.

Episode 25: New Year Reflection: Lessons from an Historic Disaster

In this episode of Keep America Growing, host Tom Zacharias looks back at the 2012 Midwest drought, one of the most significant stress tests in modern agricultural history. The conversation explores how crop insurance performed under unprecedented pressure, why the public-private partnership matters, and what the lessons from 2012 still mean for farm policy today.